‘Winds of Winter’ Release Date: George R.R. Martin Takes a Break from Writing, Could the Book be Finished?

George R.R. Martin, the author behind the series, "A Song of Ice and Fire," which the HBO hit medieval drama, "Games of Thrones" is based on, recently took a break from writing to attend a minor-league baseball event in Staten Island, NY.

The fact that Martin had the time to attend the promotional game between the Yankees and the Hudson Valley Renegades, called "Games of Thrones Night," gives fans hope that Martin's sixth book in the series, "Winds of Winter" might be close to being done.

Martin shared a picture of himself sitting on the Iron Throne modeled after the one in the TV show with a caption that read, "Had a great time at the Direwolves game tonight, check out their cool throne made of baseball bats!"

Had a great time at the Direwolves game tonight, check out their cool throne made of baseball bats! pic.twitter.com/KjIzFQsF3x

— George RR Martin (@GRRMspeaking) August 9, 2015

When Martin started writing the book, he had stated that he would take time off from editing "Games of Thrones" scripts and would be skipping several events in order to finish the book as soon as possible.

He said to Entertainment Weekly back in April, "I wish it was out now. Maybe I'm being overly optimistic about how quickly I can finish. But I canceled two convention appearances, I'm turning down a lot more interviews-anything I can do to clear my decks and get this done."

The photo evidence of Martin on a break from writing and his most recent blog post on Not a Blog, have fans hoping that the book will finished very soon and released either at the end of this year or at the beginning of 2016 before season 6 of "Games of Thrones" premieres.

"Winds of Winter" is the sixth book out of seven in the series. The only plotline that fans know from the book is that there might be a huge plot twist for a major character. The twist would affect three to four other characters.

"Games of Thrones" season five has finally reached the same points as Martin's fifth book, "A Dance of Dragons," which was released in 2011. Although the show has diverged from the books significantly, it still follows some of the books' major plotlines.